The Exodus Sagas: Book I - Of Spiders And Falcons (32 page)

“This,” Shinayne patted the chest of the gray gladiator, “is Saberrak, and he is most grateful to meet you and be welcomed into your city, my lady.”

“I am?”

“You
are
. Mind your manners horned one, I would most like to get out of the cold and you are not helping that goal this moment, so I am assisting you. Keep walking.” The elven noble nudged the minotaur forward, past the gate and into the city to walk wherever this noble wizard planned on taking them. The four weary travelers walked beside Gwenneth Lazlette on cobblestone streets into the lit city of the arcane.

“I suppose you want to see this, then?” Saberrak pulled the scroll from his pack as he walked, trying to relax a bit.

“No, no, no! Put that away Saberrak, please. I am not the only wizard that is aware you carry something valuable. We have a hunter on the loose in the city as we speak, not for you as far as we know, but deadly and hard to track nonetheless. Keep that hidden until I get us into the Lazlette Semanarium Arcanum.

He put it back quickly, looking from left to right. “The
what
?”

“That large four towered, twelve bridged, nine storied, college of the arcane dead ahead about a mile or so.” Gwenne pointed toward her home, keeping her pace forward and brisk and letting her tongue slip without knowing it.

“Oh.” Saberrak looked up, admiring the stone structure, in much better shape than the ones he first saw upon emerging in the west.

“Who or what is the hunter after, Lady Lazlette?” asked the dwarf, making conversation, not overly thrilled about walking into dangers he did not know all about.

“That is not important for you to know,
Zen
. See that to your left, past the buildings there, that is the Temple of Golden Mercy, the largest cathedral in the…” Gwenne turned in time to hear whistling projectiles, one into the shoulder of the minotaur, one glancing off the armor of the dwarf, another past Gwenne’s face, and yet another clanged into the shield over the knight’s back, piercing the worn steel and lodging itself in the center. Many more, from side alleys, left and right and rooftops above, flew into the night sky aimed at the entire gathering.

“Cover, find cover!” James pulled his shield off his back, covering the wizard and drawing his broadsword. Azenairk did the same to the right side, concealing the elven swordswoman, realizing that the minotaur was too big to protect with his shield.

“Keep moving, head to the west tower, bottom alcove!
Neshtael fidrium desh denaal
!” Gwenneth raised her hands out to each side, chanting for the air to solidify and swirl. Ten foot circular wisps of air circled on either side of the pinned group, bolts from crossbows impacting and swirling to the snowy cobblestone or streaming off target.

James and Azenairk moved to her front and rear, shielding the wizard, while Shinayne and Saberrak drew weapons and stayed behind the enormous swirling air that protected them all. “Six on this side, three moving toward us!” the elf called to her friends, anxious to let them get within reach with their blades.

“I have at least ten by the temple, only three moving in. The others are firing at something else, not us.” Saberrak too, had his axe and bone shortblade drawn, ready to defend the wizard he had yet to really acknowledge.

The men, like shadows erupting from every corner, were upon them in moments, swift, silent, and leading with curved blades of coastal cutthroats, not the typical straight edges of battle hardened soldiers. Three came from the right of the road, moving to the front of the entourage in attempt to slow their pace, Shinayne moved to the edge of the magical air shields Gwenneth controlled, and waited for the first assassin to make his move. All three stopped, drew daggers and hurled them end over end at the elven woman. Her longblade deflected one to the right, her curved shortblade meeting another and sending it high into the circling wall of wind, where it stopped and fell harmlessly to the street. The third was caught by the veteran knights’ shield as it flung over the elf’s head, sticking yet another weapon into the falcon head emblem. The three men charged, each a few feet apart, hoping to get inside past the reach of the swordswoman to the wizard protecting them from the continuous onslaught of crossbow fire. Shinayne stepped from the protection of James’ shield and smiled at her adversaries as they advanced.

The three coming from behind had the same plan, practiced and trained for this very circumstance. They did not plan for a gray minotaur, bolt still imbedded in his shoulder, to rush out amid a stream of deadly projectiles with horns lowered. As they drew their daggers, crossbow fire from dozens of archers on either side still raining, the gray gladiator dove his horns into the man on the right, veering his charge last second to ensure contact. Driving the man through the chest with both two foot sharp horns and into the closest wall, another bolt lodged into the side of his thigh. Pain was only enraging the outnumbered minotaur, he threw with all the strength in his muscled torso and neck his first victim flying into one of the remaining two, both tumbling across the snow covered street. The third man, dressed much like a shadow in form fitting black leather and cloth, waved his hand to the air, which halted the bolts that now were nearing he and his men. Saberrak grinned, marching forward with his axe and boneblade, ready to finish what these men had started before more arrived.

The first assassin moved with the third to either side of Shinayne, cutting in toward her in unison, both parried from quick inhuman reflex and decades of training with the finest blades forged by mortals. Her counter attacks both feints, meant to aim in at the men’s chests’, and as they parried up, the elf turned left, retracting her attacks, and dove both blades under the saber of her enemy on the left, and through his ribs. As she pulled the blades out, his attack continued, Shinayne stopped the saber with her curved right hand blade, and with the left off hand, plunged the tip with a quick jab to his throat. Turning just as he fell, blades up and crossed, the other two leapt at her, their crosspieces locking with hers. She ducked down, backward rolled and kicked up for better distance, when light flashed from behind her.

“
Confael sinirium
!” Gwenneth, easily concentrating on the shields of air, pointed her two fingers of her right hand toward the man on the left of the rolling elf, unleashing a flash of energy that burned white hot and it struck him dead in the abdomen. Sparks showered with more white heat, the smell of burning leather and flesh filled the steaming air as the rogue dropped to the ground, screaming as his belly burned and melted through. The group kept moving, the elf stepping over the screaming thug, keeping blades with the one on his feet. As James neared the man, his sword went up and down quickly, silencing the man through the chest mercifully and without hesitation.

Saberrak backed up, avoiding the arcing saber cuts from both men now, swinging his axe at their heads and reaching stabs with the boneblade at their chests. Neither man was believing he was that slow, which he was not, or the two young assassins were simply too afraid to get very close to the angered minotaur. Tired of the cat and mouse exchange of misses, Saberrak stopped, lowered his weapons, drawing confusion from both men, who hesitated for just a moment, unsure what to do. The minotaur snorted, lifted both arms, and hurled his axe at the one on the left, and the ogre bonesword at the one on the right, the weapons crossing over each other as they flew end over end into their targets ten feet away. The axe buried into the chest of its man, killing him quickly. The other sustained the blade in the hip, leaving him standing. Azenairk, seeing his horned ally unarmed facing a sword, charged the man with a battle cry. As the man turned toward the charging dwarf, Saberrak stepped ahead, pulled his double bladed axe from the corpse it was lodged in, and cleaved the wounded assassins head clean off from behind, splattering blood all over the front of the dwarven priest. “Damn it! That was
not
necessary!” gruffed Azenairk at the minotaur standing above the headless body falling to the snow. Saberrak grinned, pulling his thrown blade from the hip of his enemy, and jogged ahead to the rest of the group.

The saber caught her hand, a grazing cut, and Shinayne countered with her left blade, the killer parried. She turned her wrist, forcing him to do the same, over and over, to keep the elf from getting her blade inside his defenses. She turned again, and then dropped her wrist, forcing his blade down, exposing his forearm. Her curved longblade crosscut with her shoulder behind it, cleaving through bone, leaving his arm and saber dangling. She reversed her cut, a backward slash across his chest and through his armor, splitting his flesh, then drove the shortblade through the wound near the heart. Shinayne kept marching the Vallakazz streets, leading the protected caravan through the night, Saberrak jogging beside her now, both looking behind them as more men appeared two streets down from the left, but none from the Temple side.

“Almost there, just keep moving.” The calm voice of Gwenneth rose above the heat of the fight and the five kept moving, the dwarf and the knight shielding her from the rear and the elf and the minotaur walking the front. Staring at the bodies left in their wake behind them, she wondered who these travelers truly were. Gwenneth had never killed anyone before, nor used magic offensively like this. Since they all thought she was actually Lady Lazlette of Vallakazz, Gwenne grinned knowing that actually,
she
had not killed anyone this night.

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Shiver crept out again from inside the alcove, and again crossbow bolts fired at the emergence of the steaming longsword. Kendari stayed, back to the wall of a side entrance alcove, and entrance with a locked door. The stairs down to the courtyard only ten feet away and the drop from over the balcony about thirty feet, the Nadderi elf was pinned down by at least ten archers. He had been watching the minotaur and the elven woman, Saberrak and Shinayne, if he recalled correctly from his interrogation of the satyr. He saw them pass with others, but could do nothing. Helpless to escape, yet his enemies had seen four of their comrades killed on the temple steps so far. Kendari assumed they had not the courage to advance on him again. He would wait till they ran out of bolts, or grew tired and bored and charged him. Very much he wished to take the elf again in combat, but all the cursed swordsman could do was watch from afar while these men foolishly tried to cut down a trained elven noble who wielded ceremonial blades. He wished he was there to see her face in pain once again.

Another bolt, skittering across the stone wall above his head, forcing him to duck. “Closer, but still here waiting to see if you are as poorly trained in saber as you are in archery!” his taunts amused him, but would do nothing to trick White Spider assassins into an attack they were not told, or too smart to take. Kendari drew his other longsword from over his right hip, holding it reversed as always, and kicked the double oak doors again. There was no give there, barely a rattle. Yet a voice after almost two hours here, a voice in Agarian nearing the door.

“Why would you be trying to come in this door and not the
front
, Olwynn? It is late and I need my rest for sermon...” the door unlocked and opened.

“
Evening father
.” Kendari plunged Shiver into the priests’ chest, then kicking him off the blade, the old gray haired man landed ten feet ahead, shocked and bleeding to death in his white robes of the bedchamber. “Forgive me Alden, but I will be sending you some loyal servants, just a little earlier than you had planned.”

The Nadderi elf snuck through the temple chambers, a couple of screams from the nuns as doors opened then slammed shut with his passing. Kendari kept heading west, keeping to the dark away from torchlight knowing there was another entrance on the side that was closer to the gate and the guards, closer to where the White spider would not dare go. Another priest staggered into the dark hallway in the dead of night, seeing blades on a shadow with a pale face and green eyes, the man ran back to his room and slammed the door. The cursed swordsman heard praying as he passed. For a little fun, he plunged his blade through a gap in the wooden door about head level. “I would ask Alden to let me out quickly or your sermon tomorrow will be just one large funeral priest. Now, which way to the west exit?”

“D-d-down the stairs to your right, th-th-then turn left, second-d-d floor and-d-d you can leave.”

“
God bless
.”

The elf followed the priest’s direction, and spotted the west entrance. He stopped, also spotting the seven men aiming crossbows in the hallway directly at him. Smiling, slowly walking forward, he waited for the trigger fingers to twitch. The one on the left fired and the swordsman dropped to the floor, face turned aside, body flush with the cold marble. Every bolt went over his body, skittering down the stone floor of the dark corridor of the Temple of Golden Mercy. As he rolled over and kicked to his feet he heard the drawing of many blades from scabbards. “City guard will be here soon. Let us expedite this meeting, agreed?”

The seven assassins and thugs of the White Spider pulled their half masks up to right over their noses, they had been using them to hide their breath outside, now they raised them to hide their faces from those inside the temple. Two tried to get behind Kendari quickly, sliding along the walls to either side of the grand wide hallway. The Nadderi pointed out, mentally, that they were also young, doing as they were told and would be easily dispatched, so he allowed them behind him. Four more came on guard from his front and one more, with many scars on his face around the eyes, stayed back behind his men. “Our orders are to remove you if you became an obstacle, Kendari.” The older member whispered through his men. “I say, we kill him for fun and let’s
pretend he is
an obstacle.”